"Peace and quiet? Is that what you think will happen?" Delphi laughed and kissed the tip of his nose. "Nice try, but I worked too hard at cooking this meal, so they will eat it and be civil about it."
"The château has given them wine again, so I wouldn't get your hopes up about them behaving."
"Kesari! You were taught better manners than this. Introduce me to this divine creature at once," a stag shifter declared, moving Tenebrys out of the way. He bowed low, took Delphi's hand, and kissed the back of her fingers. Tenebryslooked like he wanted to throw the other male out of the window. "My queen, I am Eiran, and I am your most humble servant."
"Ah, I thought you might be," Delphi said with a glance over at Syn. "My money is on Ten."
Syn's serious expression broke, and he tipped his head back and laughed. "Wise bet, Delphi."
Eiran straightened and glared at Syn. "What lies have you been telling, Delphi? You really can't believe anything these ingrates say."
Tenebrys pulled Delphi closer to his side. "Eiran is the oldest of us, and he likes to show it by acting superior and talking to us like we are all children."
"That's because you are," Eiran said. He winked at Delphi. "Except for you. You are delightful. This house hasn't felt so welcoming since Kesari's mother was alive."
"You knew Maela?" Delphi asked him.
"I came from Faerie with her as a bodyguard. We were both seduced to the enemy's side," Eiran replied with a gleam in his eyes.
"The Lord of Plagues cursed you too? Even though you were fae and not a shifter?" Delphi had to reassess some of the thoughts she was having about how the original sickness had worked, if it affected fae too.
"Eiran is special and could shift into a deer," Tenebrys explained.
"A sacred white hart, thank you, Kesari," Eiran corrected haughtily. "And Plagues is a mean, petty bitch who couldn't handle losing me and my magic, so he went out of his way to add me into the nasty thing he threw at the shifters."
An idea suddenly hit Delphi like a rock to the head. "You are fae and know magic? I'm going through the books in Maela's library, and I need help interpreting some of them."
"My dear, I would be delighted to assist you."
"Another thing, why do you call him Kesari?" she asked, pointing at Tenebrys.
Eiran shot Tenebrys an incredulous look. "You haven't told your mate your name? What iswrongwith you?"
"Only you call me that, so it didn't seem important," Tenebrys replied with a shrug.
Delphi feigned outrage. "I'm with Eiran on this one. Rude. Come, Eiran, you can introduce me to everyone else so I get their real names." She looped her arm in Eiran's, and the stag shifter smirked.
Tenebrys sighed behind her, but mirth danced in the connection between them. "Don't encourage him to be more insufferable than he already is."
All the shifters were tall and broad, but the hugest one in the room approached her and Eiran. He put his hands on his hips and looked down at her. His fur was a dark brown, like the long braid down his back. The fur was short enough that she could see twisting blue tattoos beneath it. He must have been covered in them when he took a human form.
"You are very small, witch," he said in a deep grumble of a voice. "But the king seems to believe that you're not going to break under him."
Eiran put a hand over his face and muttered something that sounded like a curse under his breath.
"I haven't broken yet, and we had a good go of it," Delphi replied, staring the shifter in the eye. They were an icy blue that twinkled with amusement. He was fucking with her just to see how she would react. "Getting fucked to death by Tenebrys wouldn't be a bad way to go, I've got to admit."
The big shifter threw his head back and roared with laughter, revealing his long fangs. "A lusty mate is all a male can wish for in this world. I'm glad Ten found his at last."
"This is Otso. He is a bear shifter from Runefjell and thinks with either his balls or his stomach," Eiran said, making it sound like an apology.
"It's because both are so big," Otso said, still chuckling as he rubbed his belly. He didn't have an ounce of fat on him, but he was as solid as a small mountain.
"Can we eat yet? I'm starving," Felix complained. "Eiran is taking forever, so Delphi, this is Nahir. He only talks when he wants to complain."
He pointed to the shifter leaning against the wall at the back of the hall. He had dark brown skin on the insides of his arms and along his neck and face, but the rest was covered in orange and black stripes like the tigers from Kisharu. Delphi had only ever seen drawings of the big cats and hadn't known that they had shifters that were tigers too.
Nahir flipped off Felix before he nodded his head at Delphi, saying nothing.
